Strange things very old books teach us...

[thistlechaser]

I'm currently reading a book called Kazan the Wolf Dog. (You can read the whole book here online.) It was published a few years after White Fang and Call of the Wild, and it's clearly a big knock-off of them. (Though in a lot of ways it's actually better... I'll get into the details once I finish it and write my review.)

I came to an odd paragraph that boggled me enough to merit a post of its own. Kazan and his mate are caught in a forest fire:

Panic-stricken, Kazan searched vainly for a means of escape. Not for an instant did he leave Gray Wolf. It would have been easy for him to swim across either of the two streams, for he was three-quarters dog. But at the first touch of water on her paws, Gray Wolf drew back, shrinking. Like all her breed, she would face fire and death before water.

Buh? The book was written in 1914 and has a whole lot wrong about wolves (claims that they're not social animals and that they all have red eyes are two of the big ones). But a fear of water? I wonder if it comes from the myth that werewolves can't cross running water?

All in all, the book is surprisingly enjoyable. That it's free to read online makes it even better. (Legally, too. Anything copyrighted or published prior to 1923 is in the public domain. I shouldn't have paid for Call of the Wild!)

Edit: Okay, so much for my werewolf idea. It's not just wolves:

And then out upon that white finger of sand came other things that dreaded the water as Gray Wolf dreaded it: a big fat porcupine, a sleek little marten, a fishercat that sniffed the air and wailed like a child. Those things that could not or would not swim outnumbered the others three to one. Hundreds of little ermine scurried along the shore like rats, their squeaking little voices sounding incessantly...

It goes on to list a bunch of other animals that won't swim.

Comments

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

It's odd too, that all these animals that can't or won't swim are weasels of some sort.

But Beautiful Joe, published around the same time (1893), by Marshall Saunders, with its long info dumps about animals in the wild (located in Ontario, I believe), never said anything like this about how these animals behaved.

Love, C.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I had wondered if it was innocent ignorance or if he was trying to demonize certain animals. I guess either he was lazy and did no research or it was the latter.

[evilgrayson.livejournal.com]

Might have something to do with rabies, believe it or not - rabid animals avoid water.

If the behaviour of rabid wild animals is what's best known to the author, they might assume that wild animals in general won't swim.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I almost added a line saying "this was all animals, not just one rabid wolf", then I realized he said wolves as a breed did this. That could be why he thinks that though, yeah. I do wonder at the dog/wolf thing though -- why does he think a dog will swim but not a wolf? Even if the guy knew nothing of genetics, he'd know that dogs and wolves could breed while other species couldn't, so they must be more closely related...

[evilgrayson.livejournal.com]

He'd have seen dogs swimming, so might even think that a willingness to swim was a mark of domestication.

There might also be a lingering element to his worldview (either his own or what he learned growing up) that wild animals are unclean in either a physical or a spiritual sense.

As for genetics, dogs and wolves breeding and closer relationships, that might be assuming a bit much. He'd know that dogs and wolves can breed. Would he realise that meant they were related, though? Or that wolves can breed with dogs that aren't wolflike, such as Alsatians?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Your comment made me remember I wanted to google him and see if that lead to any clues. (How easily I get distracted...)

I think I spoke too soon, saying this book was a knock-off of White Fang. (Though if it had really been, it would explain the errors.) He made many trips north, especially once his books got popular.

Based on his bibliography, it looks like he must gone to Alaska and northern Canada before writing this book. It's not too big of a jump to assume he saw wolves. I wonder why he gave them all red eyes?

He said "Nature is my religion and my desire, my ambition, the great goal I wish to achieve, to take my readers with me into the heart of this nature.". Maybe he thought red eyes, not being able to swim, etc would just make it a better story?

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Whoa. I read this book when I was a kid, at least a couple of times. Our local library had it. I remember practically nothing about it, though.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

That's why I'm (re)reading it, too. I read it as a kid, but I didn't remember anything at all about it other than I enjoyed it. With it being online, it was easy to check it out, and I found myself drawn in.

It's far, far from perfect, but it's worth reading if you have time and desire to.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Your LJ seems interesting to read, I wanted to friend you but amusingly your user profile is banned by my work network! I'll be interested to get home and see what odd thing triggered it. (There's a Japanese snack review blog that's been banned by my work network for months now. Nothing adult, nothing racist/sexist/violent on the page. It's a picky filter!) I'll do it from home tonight.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

LOL, probably because I write erotica, so that word is sprinkled throughout....

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ah could be! (Though it's not protesting at all about this comment page...) It's become a fun game of guessing why the network doesn't like something. :P Not long ago it didn't like a post on my main LJ page, but when I went to the page of that post directly, it loaded fine. Wackiness.